*****Disclaimer To My Friends*****

*****There Will Be Snake Photos In This Post*****

(…..there I feel better now…..)

(…..I have a few squeamish friends…..)

It’s that time of year when my biddies (the chickens…..not my friends) are warming up to more egg production…

It conveniently coincides with Spring Egg Celebrations like Easter…

Being that my hens are all truly free-range…..that means they can lay their eggs just about anywhere…

A daily egg-search is a must…….

…..on top of the generator…….

…..in the foot-well of the wagonette…….

…..behind the propane tanks…….

…..behind the stored plywood…….

…..in the manure-filled wheelbarrow in the breezeway of the barn…….

…..and then the “regular” places…..like in the chicken coop…..in the hen’s actual laying-boxes…

The daily egg-search is not just for me…….

…..it’s now a foot-race with the crows and the snakes…….

…..I’ve complained about the jeering/obnoxious crows before…….

!!!!!!!***************************They Vex Me So***************************!!!!!!!

…..But NOW there’s the addition of a tiny rat snake…….

…..who is racing me for the daily cache of barn-eggs too…….!

Who knew collecting eggs could be so aerobic…….!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The crows have taken to tossing empty shells at me when I’m too late…….

Uuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhh!!!

I take it personally…….

I should count myself lucky that the crows haven’t figured out how to fly into the chicken coop yet…….

…..you know the expression…..to have “flown the coop”?…….

…..well, it takes on a real-life concept here…….

AND NOW THERE’S A SNAKE IN THE DAILY FOOT RACE TOO!

I spotted him last week smoothly skating along the stacked plywood…….toward some new eggs from a couple of vagabond hens…….

…..my hand was on the eggs…..when I glanced to my right…..and right there was the little snake’s beady eyes…..reproaching me for my egg collecting…….

…..I was unflustered and grabbed the eggs anyway…….

…..then a couple days later, I ran into the little snake once again…….

…..the little fella just kept on going, and going, and going…….

…..he wasn’t a little snake at all…….

…..he was quite a long, long snake after all…….

…..the last I saw him, he was scaling one of the barn’s corner/telephone pole posts…….heading towards the hayloft…….

…..and there he stays…..I’m sure…..until he drops on me some sunny day from the rafters above my head……..

…..I just hate when that happen…….

…..I really do…